


A Place in the Sun

by MegaWallflower



Category: Naruto
Genre: Childhood Friends, Cookies, Cute Kids, Domestic Fluff, Happy Hatake Sakumo, Introspection, M/M, Parenthood, PoV Hatake Sakumo, Pre-Canon, Swords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 08:55:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19292443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegaWallflower/pseuds/MegaWallflower
Summary: Sakumo has a two small pleasures in this world: his son, and his son’s happiness.





	A Place in the Sun

 

_It’s pleasantly warm today…,_ Sakumo belatedly realized, as he poured another cup of tea and placed the saucer inside of a silver tray. _Kakashi’s so sensitive to the cold. He’ll probably be in a good mood today._

He had recently returned from a mission in the land of snow, and before that, the land of wind, and it made him appreciate Konoha so much more. The subtle warmth was much more welcome than a desert of sand’s heatwaves or a desert of snow’s blizzards. Part of it was probably in his mind. This was his “home,” so of course he would want to attribute its characteristics to perfection more than anywhere else, wouldn’t he?

He pondered over this as he glanced at the cookies Duy had brought over earlier. “Ahaha! I got over excited and baked too many! You’ll take some, won’t you, Sakumo!?” They were plain looking cookies from such a boisterous man, but then, Sakumo couldn’t imagine how Duy got by in general on a genin’s salary. Maybe he would consider things like this opulence.

He arranged the leftover cookies on a small plate that he then, too, placed on the tray.

Satisfied that the snacks were taken care of, Sakumo smiled and carefully carried the silver tray to the living room, where his son and Duy’s son stood face to face a few feet apart, taking defensive battle poses as they carefully regarded each other with the same hawk-eyed stare and undivided attention that only the most skilled jonin ought to have. Around them, an audience of ninken –and one conspicuously small tortoise plopped on top of Pakkun’s head –watched silently, almost like they were holding their breaths.

Sakumo stopped in the doorway, caught between not wanting to interrupt and not being sure if this was a match or an actual falling out between the two of them. Was he supposed to break this apart, as the responsible parent? “Um…”

“—Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”

Both boys threw out rock.

The crowd of summons cheered, and they tried again until they threw out different hand signs. “Again! Again! Again!”

“–AUGH!” Guy cried in frustration when the pattern finally broke. Guy had chosen rock and Kakashi had chosen paper. “I lost! But I trained so hard!”

“I don’t think this is the kind of thing you train for…” Kakashi said in a deadpan voice. It was almost hard to hear him over the sound of all his ninken cheering at his victory. “You showed him, boss!” “We knew you’d win!”

The tiny tortoise on Pakkun’s head seemed to be crying a stream of tears. So, he was Guy’s friend, then.

With a sigh and an affectionate smile, the head of the Hatake clan made his way over to the ninjas-in-training, making sure that his steps weren’t as silent as they usually were to alert both boys of his presence. Only when both Kakashi and Guy turned their heads towards the noise and stared at him inquisitively did Sakumo dare to gently lay the tray down on the floor next to them, confident in the fact that they won’t let their drinks go cold or accidentally knock one of the cups over in their agitated movements and continued challenges.

The summoned animals were quicker to appreciate the cookies than their masters were. They scrambled to the tray and grabbed what they could in their teeth, or in the tortoise’s case, in his beak. He was awfully determined for such a little guy. Sakumo was certain he belonged to Guy, now.

Kakashi murmured a quiet thank you as he reached over for one cup of tea and gently cradled it on his hands, bringing it close to his lips and turning away from Guy and Sakumo to take a tentative sip. Sakumo watched, amused, as Guy tried to mimic Kakashi’s cool demeanor, picking up his cup and taking a sip just like Kakashi had. His lips quirked slightly downwards in displeasure at the strong bitterness.

“It’s an acquired taste, Guy. A little kid like you wouldn’t like it,” Kakashi teased. “Dad, you saw, right? I won again.” Kakashi bragged in that tone when he was trying to prove Sakumo wrong about Guy ever getting stronger than him.

“Sakumo-san, you saw how close I came, right?! I’ll be training even harder! Next time, I’ll be the one saying that I won!” To prove his resolve, Guy took his cup of tea and downed the entire thing in one gulp. His face turned an interesting shade of green, but he managed to keep the drink down.

Kakashi chuckled at the boy’s antics, rolling his eyes and making another face at his father.  

Sakumo didn’t hold back his smile, letting himself down onto the floor as well and reaching for one of the cookies. “You both are getting stronger. I’m impressed, as I always am,” he offered mildly.

“That’s his way of saying he feels sorry for you, Guy,” Kakashi translated, incorrectly and unhelpfully.

Guy took it in stride as always. He laughed off the insult and picked up his tortoise. “This is your first time meeting, right? Sakumo-san, meet Ningame! Ningame, meet Sakumo-san! Kakashi helped me get a summon! This little guy is proof of my progress and my friendship with Kakashi! Kakashi was so helpful! We found a scroll, and he was there by my side the first time I met him, and then, I think I blacked out, so Kakashi probably put my bandages back in place for me!” he bragged.

“Is that so?” Sakumo asked. He gently picked up a cookie from the tray, turning towards his son with kind black eyes, genuinely pleased that there was something of a growing comradery between them.

“It is so! Kakashi scolded me the same way Papa scolds me if I get hurt! That is to say, I could feel the love and concern within the anger! My rival has such a kind heart, deep, deep down! You’ve raised him really well, Sakumo-san, Ningame was saying so too! And my dad, he said ‘I must commend that Sakumo fellow, such an outstanding man’!” Guy tried to imitate his father’s very deep voice and very flamboyant manner of speaking, and to his credit, he came remarkably close. Sometimes Sakumo wondered if others saw as strong a resemblance between himself and Kakashi as Sakumo saw in Guy and Duy.

All the while, Kakashi looked progressively more embarrassed as Guy went on. He tugged his mask further up and pointedly looked away, and if Kakashi wasn’t such an enigma, Sakumo might think that he was hiding a blush or a pout under there. Kakashi rarely acted his age like this. That, too, must have been from Guy’s influence.

“…I’m done eating. We were going to have a real competition once Dad came back, weren’t we?” Kakashi said, standing up and taking a defensive stance. He seemed impatient to move the topic along, and now that he wasn’t tugging up his mask, Sakumo was certain that his cheeks and ears were slightly reddened.

The older boy did as he was told as soon as he got the hint, haphazardly shoving two cookies into his mouth and wiping the crumbs on his jumpsuit before falling into a defensive pose. _His stance is more solid than it used to be_ , Sakumo thought to himself. “Another challenge? I’m ready for anything! Bring it on, Kakashi! –But just for the record, all our competitions are ‘real competitions’!”

“Yeah, yeah…” Kakashi answered dismissively. “Call it, dad.”

Sakumo looked from one boy to the other.

They each braced themselves, striking their stances a yard apart from one another. This was just a spar between kids, but Sakumo saw a change in Guy’s demeanor. The bright, cherry smile vanished. And in its stead a look of focus appeared that Sakumo thought didn’t look like the face he’d make for a friendly spar. He’d seen looks like that countless times in his life, when he was working. That intense determination that seemed to emanate off of him. Kakashi’s own expression changed to match. Eye’s narrowing, the muscles in his wrist tightening as he clenched his hands into fists.

Both of them stood perfect still, with not even a twitch of the eye to give anything away, waiting patiently for Sakumo to start the match.

“Oh, you two are going to have another fight?”

Kakashi scoffed. “If he thinks he’s half as good as he needs to be to be _my_ rival, we are.”

“Ha! Well said, my Rival!” Guy declared, ready to pounce. “I accept your challenge! Then you’ll have to admit that I really am that good!”

“Wait.”

Both boys stopped and stared at him, neither letting their guard down just yet, like they expected the other to take advantage of the distraction and launch a surprise attack. Sakumo almost felt like he was intruding on their strategies.

Sakumo stood up quickly, brushing himself off. “This is a good chance to practice. I’ll get you two something proper to fight with…” Sakumo trailed off.

Slipping silently into the room connected to their living room, the legendary White Fang quickly found himself digging through what little items he had lying around his room, in chests and under the floor. His room was a little messier than his son’s, if only because he was away more than Kakashi was. From a chest, he pulled out two toy weapons, idly checking the weight of each in his hands. “This should suffice if they’re just playing,” Sakumo said to himself, swinging them in his hands. They didn’t have anything close to the power or weight of proper shinobi tools, so even if the fight got heated, they couldn’t hurt themselves with these.

He was just about to leave when he noticed something glimmer under his bed. He knelt to the floor, grey locks muddling his vision as he dug around under the rickety thing and pulled out a twin pair of short swords. He needed to hide these better, or Kakashi might try to use them before he was ready. A sigh escaped his lips, and he bounced up to his feet, only to—

_Crash_

Losing his balance, Sakumo’s eyes widened in shock as he fell forward and found himself in the arms –paws –tortoise claws? – of two young boys, a pack of ninken, and one very determined, very tiny tortoise.

“Sakumo-san, are you okay? It’s really messy in here!” Guy looked absolutely shocked to see the older man trip.

“You already got back from your mission, dad, how are you still tired?” Kakashi asked, annoyance and a bit of concern mixed into his tone.

Sakumo was sure he could have regained his own balance much more gracefully than this little group had, but he offered them all a grateful smile nonetheless while he stood back up. “I’m fine. Thank you both.”

“You’re welcome!” Guy declared, and the all followed suit, just as enthusiastic to be told they did a good job.

“So, we’re sparring with these?”

Sakumo returned his attention to the ones who wasn’t happily yipping at his feet—Kakashi, and oddly, Guy’s tortoise that was following after him. Kakashi had picked up the two swords from under the bed and was currently inspecting them.

Sakumo frowned, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth as he regarded his son with reservation. “No, for a spar, it would be better to use practice weapons.”

Kakashi rolled his eyes, leaning against the hilt of the sword lazily. “I’m not a little _kid_ , dad. I’m almost a genin, and everyone says I’m almost good enough to be a chunin. I have to practice with something that weighs the same as a real weapon and moves the same as a real weapon. If we’re fighting with weapons, I want to use real ones. I don’t play with toys.” From Kakashi’s calm tone and Sakumo’s worried expression, it might have been easy for an onlooker to mistake Kakashi for the professional shinobi of a father and Sakumo as the academy-level son, if it weren’t for the fact that Sakumo’s age showed very clearly on his face.

Sakumo raised a brow at this, not sure what it meant or how much of a smart move from Kakashi that was strategy-wise, but the way Guy pressed his lips into a tight line and leaned the slightest bit forward Sakumo showed Kakashi wasn’t the one interested in Sakumo’s real weapons. “I know you’ve practiced with swords. However, Guy—”

“I’ve never gotten to hold a real sword before! I want to learn, too! I’m going to be a jonin one day, just like Kakashi, so I can’t let him leave me behind! I want to try it! Ningame, you want to see me master a sword, don’t you?”

Sakumo hoped that somehow the tiny tortoise would be the voice of reason to talk the boys out of it. And for a second, it seemed like maybe he would. The little red tortoise clenched its mouth and seemed to have to think about it, shook his head slowly, but before Sakumo could sigh in relief, “Go for it, Guy!”

Sakumo bristled in surprise. Oh –Guy’s summon could talk. In the back of his mind, part of him had wondered if Guy had just picked up a tortoise from the wild and called it a summon, but it seemed like Kakashi really had helped Guy acquire a real one. A real summon whose wisdom Guy put a lot of faith into, if his victorious smile was any indication. A real summon who was encouraging their fun. Sakumo wasn’t sure if he had it in him to turn them down when both boys and all their summons were suddenly jumping and running and talking about how excited they would be to do this.

Seeing as his son was going to win this argument eventually, Sakumo put away the practice weapons and handed Guy a proper sword.

Sakumo sighed, out of defeat instead of relief. “Alright. I’ll make sure neither of you get hurt. If I tell you to stop, you have to stop immediately. Do you understand?” Sakumo said, trying to sound imposing in a fatherly Duy-sort-of-way. Sakumo could be imposing and terrifying on missions, but he made a point not to use any such demeanor with his own son. It would be overkill.

Guy beamed, reaching for the sword and winking at Kakashi in a way that could probably mean something else, in another life, but right now it was just a cocky gesture of confidence from a little kid with little skill for risk assessment. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Sakumo wondered about teenage years and first loves and how many other times he would have to deal with these sorts of concessions and defeats.

Letting out another tired sigh, Sakumo made sure to shoot his son a warm warning glance, trying to make sure he didn’t take a victory for granted and let his guard down. Kakashi seemed to understand, as he nodded vehemently and straightened his posture, turning back to Guy and staring him down as he carefully waited for him to make a move.

Then, and only then, did Sakumo allow himself to regard both of them, confident in the fact that he would prevent any serious injury. Guy was turning the sword in his hands, trying to figure out how to hold it, dark eyes fixed intently on each and every part of the blade and hilt as he tried to work out the next best move. Sakumo could practically see the gears turning in his head, connecting a thousand moves to one another in a matter of mere seconds. It reminded him of the first time he’d let Kakashi hold a real sword. That look he'd get while trying to work out the next best move was mirrored down to a T in this boy’s face.

“You’re doing it wrong already.” Kakashi set down his sword and walked behind Guy, taking his hands and adjusting them on the hilt of his blade. “Hold it with both hands. Spread your feet like this. Back hand’s for power, front hand’s for control— like this. Doesn’t Duy teach you anything?”

“Papa and me go through our exercises together every day, Rival!”

“Yeah, but I bet he’s never held a real weapon in his life,” Kakashi muttered under his breath. Guy muttered something under his breath too, that sounded oddly similar to a foreign expletive that Sakumo couldn’t believe Duy would have taught him.

Still, Kakashi was being surprisingly patient with Guy.

Sakumo glanced back towards his son, feeling a rush of warmth flood inside him when he realized how helpful he was being. A thousand emotions reflected in his eyes as he smiled softly. Sakumo supposed he might have had a natural knack for it. Even if it was his way of showing Sakumo that he had all the basics that they went through memorized and mastered well enough to parrot them, it was sweet to see. Not for the first time, Sakumo found himself amazed by the both of them.

“I might lose points for letting him play with swords, but I gain just as many because he’s playing nice with his friend, don’t you think?” Sakumo asked, mostly to himself, but directed the question towards the summons sitting beside him.

Pakkun nodded like he was listening. “They’re good pups. Don’t worry so much.”

“Good eggs,” Ningame said. Sakumo couldn’t tell if it was an agreement or a correction.

When Kakashi finally finished guiding Guy through the basic motions, “Get it now?” Guy nodded, so Kakashi returned to his spot and picked his sword back up. “Okay, call it _now_ , dad.”

Sakumo quietly chuckled at his son’s impatience. “Alright. Begin.”

Guy took the chance to launch the first attack. "There!" he brought his sword down and pushed against Kakashi’s, looking him right in the eye. Kakashi managed to block his attack easily enough, and they were locked in that stance for a second.

“That’s all you’ve got? I thought you were stronger than this,” Kakashi teased, pushing back so hard that Guy almost stumbled backwards and fell.

“You did? I mean—I am!!” he argued with a grin. Guy kept his footing and lunged at Kakashi quickly, trying and failing to use the element of surprise to knock Kakashi’s sword out of his hand. He left himself wide open.

Kakashi brought his sword down in a solid arc.

It didn’t connect. Kakashi’s empty fists slashed at empty air.

Sakumo had already collected both swords in one hand, and Guy in the other, leaving the boy hanging by his jumpsuit. He was a bit heavy. Sakumo wondered if he was wearing weighted clothing. “The fight is over. The match goes to Kakashi.”

Kakashi smirked with pride, while Guy just blinked and tried to figure out what had just happened. Even when Sakumo set him back on the ground, Guy seemed just as disoriented.

“That was… fast,” Guy stuttered out.

“Just as fast as all our fights are,” he said smugly, specifically so Sakumo would get the message that Guy was still nowhere close to surpassing him.

“Not that! I mean—Sakumo-san! You’re so fast! I didn’t even see you get up!”

Kakashi’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that. Of course, he is. He’s the _White Fang_ ,” Kakashi boasted. “He’s the fastest, most skilled shinobi in the village.”

“Are there faster shinobi in other villages?” Guy beamed. He was all ears now.

“You could travel the whole world, and you won’t find a ninja better than my dad.”

Kakashi and Guy exchanged a glance, and a smile, and they couldn’t disagree.

“That’s so amazing!” Guy, with his sparkling and boundless energy. Sakumo almost wondered if he had already forgotten his earlier defeat. He must have picked that up from his father.

“My father _is_ amazing.” Kakashi, with his witty remarks, his prideful grins. Pride, love, amazement— they all swam in the young boy’s dark eyes, unapologetic as he gazed at his father, the look of a proud son written clear as day all over his face. “He’s the most important jonin in the village for a reason.”

It was an admittedly cruel remark, in how pointed it was. Something flickered across Guy’s face. Envy, Sakumo thought, but it was gone too quickly to really identify it. Guy was becoming a master of hiding his emotions within the blink of an eye; he was back to simply looking excited. “Just what I’d expect from your papa, Rival!”

Sakumo smiled and looked down at his swords bashfully. He set them down and leaned them against the wall out of the way. Is that the sort of impression the boys had about him? That was probably good, all things considered.

Sakumo had been trying to be an open book around Kakashi. On missions, wearing his emotions on his sleeve had been something that Sakumo wouldn’t do. Even outside of missions, he’d always had a habit of closing himself off to others, but here and now, with his son, he wanted to seem genuine. All three sannin had told him before how terrifying he was on a mission, and the last thing he’d want was to hear that from his own son.

It was another way Duy was so different from Sakumo. Sakumo knew just how much the genin prided himself on his empathy. Being so expressive and open made him a good father for Guy, and somehow, it also had shaped him into a relatively approachable friend for Sakumo. He was something of a role model for Sakumo, an aspiring parent who had never had a real parental figure in his life.

Well, Sakumo still considered himself “an aspiring parent.” He had already been a parent for a while, of course, but he was mainly winging his way through life, praying to every god that heard him at night to keep by his side until he made it. When he’d voiced the concern to Duy, he’d simply laughed, winked, and said everyone there who was any good at parenting would still call themselves an aspiring parent. _“And we should aspire to be a better parent each and every day we spend with our kids! And we should aspire twice as hard on the days we’re apart from them! As with anything, being content enough to let your skills stagnate is the worst! Our boys are still growing every day. We have to grow with them.”_

Sakumo wondered if Guy really realized how loved he was, and how lucky he is to have such an affectionate father, even if he wasn’t the strongest shinobi. It was something so few the kids of this or any hidden village had, really, or not for long, anyway.

It might have just been in his nature as a Hatake to worry about the worst-case scenarios. There were reasons why Sakumo and Kakashi were the last members of their clan left. He found himself wondering what would happen to their children, were there to come a time where either Sakumo or Duy went absent. Or, knock on wood, where both of them were.

Sakumo wasn’t worried about the well-being of either boy, or what their new living arrangements would be. If anything were ever to happen to their fathers, Sakumo knew they could both take care of themselves, even as genin. Kakashi would still have the Hatake household to live in, and Guy would still have his little shack in the woods.

Instead, Sakumo worried about everything else that could potentially happen, of how the both of them would cope with the situation. Kakashi had been too young to remember or mourn his mother, but they were old enough to experience the pain of loss now. It was something that only got harder with age.

Shaking those thoughts out of his head, Sakumo tried to focus on what was happening with their game right now.

The boys had already moved on from their swordfight. Now, Guy was enthusiastically gushing about something or other. For his part, Kakashi looked somewhat pained as he listened to his rival ramble about whatever it is that went through his head this time.

Sakumo sighed, breaking out of his mindspace and forcing himself to concentrate on reality. The sun cast a light glow through the paper-thin walls of the porch, shining bright directly onto the living room and giving the little red tortoise a slight golden-ish tint.

Kakashi and Guy continued chasing each other back and forth, each of the moves punctuated by a stampede of paws. The other summons, besides said tortoise, had gotten quite into the game.

The boys suddenly broke apart, Guy laughed, and they both dashed out of the room again.

Kakashi returned first, short hair tied into a tiny ponytail, and a sharp expression in his eyes. He had a leaf headband tied around his forehead –Sakumo’s headband.

Next came Guy, sporting a tiny ponytail of his own and grinning like mad, wearing an oversized jonin vest.

“We’re the White Fang!” Guy exclaimed, in a very un-White-Fang-like manner. Kakashi, on the other hand, was silent, brandishing a pair of shuriken in his hands.

 Sakumo blinked and tilted his head, looking from Kakashi to Guy to Kakashi again. Neither of them had ever been on a serious mission with him, so they couldn’t help the fact that they didn’t know what his persona was when he was working. Kakashi had been on some missions with him, but even Sakumo knew not to take him on the more dangerous ones now that Kakashi was old enough to stay home by himself.

The silence was broken by the tortoise. “This one goes to Guy, I think.”

That was enough to make the entire pack of ninken chime in with their arguments. “Our boss practically looks like a mini-Sakumo, it’s his win!” “Look at that hair! It screams Sakumo!” “The green kid pulls off the ponytail better, though, gotta admit…”

The two boys stared at each other for a moment before both cracking up.

“A tie?” Guy asked.

“I guess,” Kakashi conceded.

A smile tugged at Sakumo’s lips and he shrugged, taking a seat on the ground again. “A tie, then. You both look like much more intimidating versions of myself than I’ve ever pulled off.”

Kakashi walked over to where his father was seated and plopped down on the tatami next to him. “Don’t lie to make him feel better. Guy’s never been on a mission with you. He can’t even come close; he just looks ridiculous.”

If Guy was offended, he hid it well. And instead of sitting like a regular human being, Guy let his body fall dramatically to the floor and decided that Sakumo’s thighs were as good of a pillow as can be, humming contentedly as he urged Kakashi to join him and use the jonin as a personal body pillow.

Sakumo rolled his eyes, undoing Kakashi’s ponytail and gently threading his fingers through his son’s soft hair. He was shocked when Kakashi actually did decide to follow the older boy’s example and lay against Sakumo, letting his head land heavily on his father’s shoulder. “He’s _always_ ridiculous,” Kakashi muttered. “Everything he does.”

Guy must have been truly exhausting.

Sakumo reached past them and towards the ever-emptying plate of cookies still sitting out.

Kakashi half-heartedly scolded Guy for being such a little kid, to which Guy eloquently responded by sticking his tongue out and pulling a funny face, something that seemed to make the ninken go into a fit of giggles. Trying to be the mature one, the tortoise tried and failed to contain his laughter, which made Guy join in, and, to some small extent, the two Hatake clan members chuckled along, until they were all a small cacophony of snorts and chortles on the floor.

Being like this, surrounded by family, Sakumo let himself breathe and let go of any of the what-if woes that troubled his thoughts. Here, they were all safe, a pack of knit-tight dogs (and tortoises) to fend for one another, if worse ever came to worse and they were forced to do that.

But for now, they were all safe and sound and alive, and the village was in good hands. Defending them was not something Sakumo needed to worry about yet.

With that happy thought in mind, the head of the Hatake clan smiled, letting himself get comfortable in this position, Guy’s head on his lap and Kakashi’s on his shoulder, closing his eyes to doze off as the hollow sounds of summer lured him to sleep.

In an hour or so, Duy would walk in and see the trio snuggled, snap a photo and smile at his three favorite men.

But for now, there was peace in the support they were unknowingly providing one another.


End file.
